


Team NWBY (Newbie)

by patrician_lurker



Category: RWBY
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, Memento mori, Multi, Nora is Team Leader (Brothers save us all), meditations on the life expectancy of huntsmen and huntresses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:26:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26304862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrician_lurker/pseuds/patrician_lurker
Summary: After a mishap on a routine mission, Ruby finds herself unable to go out on the field! Lacking a team leader, and with another mission on the horizon, she turns to the next best option, recruiting a close personal friend of hers to lead the rest of WBY... Nora Valkyrie?! How can Weiss survive being a part of Team NWBY (Newbie) for the next few days?!(Weiss-centric POV, massive, massive oneshot, features all sorts of interactions between the two teams. Features scenes of Nora Valkyrie hopped up on Time Dilation (read: Lightning Dust) glyphs, cashew milk pancakes, and Weiss working out in a gym! Be warned!)(A side-story to All The Colors of the Rainbow. Check out that fic too!)
Relationships: Jaune Arc & Weiss Schnee, Lie Ren & Weiss Schnee, Pyrrha Nikos & Weiss Schnee & Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose & Weiss Schnee, Team JNPR & Team RWBY, Weiss Schnee & Nora Valkyrie
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	Team NWBY (Newbie)

**Author's Note:**

> This is also in the same series as my other RWBY fics. Assume this happens somewhere around… Arc 3? After that? Between Volume 2-3, basically. Also, part of the, uh, jokes about second in commands here come from All The Colors in the Rainbow, so if you’re not sure why Blake is team RWBY’s second in command and Ruby is somehow JNPR’s, go read that. Honestly, go read that fic, it informs some of the stranger character dynamics in this story.
> 
> Also, this is an absolute monstrosity of a oneshot, so apologies. Blame the fact that it’s a Weiss story.

It was a routine mission, Weiss insisted to herself. The team was assigned on a two-day long Village Security mission that turned into Search and Destroy (Weiss could already hear Glynda’s incessant complaints about how every team RWBY mission turned into a Search and Destroy or a Bounty mission, as if it was _their_ fault that things just… happened in their presence) when they learned that the village chief understated the population of Grimm packs in the area, all in the hopes of hiring cheaper Huntresses looking to do simple Village Security. Unsurprisingly, team RWBY was unhappy about being misled (Weiss and Yang most of all), as well as the subsequent realization that they did _not_ prepare enough Dust and other supplies to conduct a proper Search and Destroy, but Ruby made the call to get started on the Search and Destroy while they waited for backup from Beacon. (The last part was a late amendment by Blake, a shocking thing to Weiss considering Blake’s tendencies towards doing things on her own.)

After all, it was hard to say no when the village was mourning the death of the chieftain’s two children, perishing when a Beringel managed to breach the village’s meager defenses. Was it a surprise that the emotion in the air attracted all those hordes of Grimm?

Despite being unprepared for the rigors of a Search and Destroy mission, Weiss felt that things went well at the start. The village was a coastal town north of the Kingdom of Vale, across from the island of Vytal, and the geography of the location meant that, in theory, it was an easily defensible position. Atlesian airship patrols covered at least up to Vytal, which meant that aquatic Grimm were kept to manageable levels and ensured that the coastal town was rarely in fear of assault from the northern waters. The only direction that Grimm could come from was the south, as the only path to the village on foot was through the forests of Sanus, and by now team RWBY was used to combatting the Grimm that populated these forests. What challenge did small packs of Beowolves, Creeps, and Nevermore present to them?

Well, a lot, apparently, as the “small pack” of Beowolves and Creeps boasted a couple of Alphas in their ranks, and Weiss had almost exhausted her supply of Dust just keeping most of the hordes at bay while Yang and Ruby took care of the more dangerous Alpha counterparts and Blake ran interference on the Grimm trying to approach Weiss. An unfortunate component to Weiss’ fighting style was that she was _heavily_ reliant on Dust, and while she was reasonably confident in her swordmanship, Myrtenaster may as well have been a toothpick against the more armored Grimm they faced. The Schnee family semblance had a way out of this, of course – summoning – but Weiss had been unable to make significant progress on that part of her training just yet.

That was possibly the reason that Weiss didn’t hear Blake’s warnings about the incoming flock of Nevermores.

Nevermores! Honestly, Weiss should have been annoyed. How could Nevermores be _threats_? She seriously had to have a chat with Winter one of these days. How in the world did Winter acquire a flock of Nevermores for her summoning glyphs? In what world did fighting a flock of Nevermores represent a great personal hurdle that Winter had to overcome?

Well, Weiss learned much that day, courtesy of Nevermores deciding that Weiss’ face was the hurdle and they were the Schnee, trying to obtain new summons. After the fifth Nevermore to slam into her face like drunk people walking into doors (and Weiss had a _lot_ of experience watching those types), Weiss had gotten fed up and unleashed the rest of her Dust supplies to eradicate the entirety of the flock, leaving her defenseless.

 _Well, I’m screwed,_ Weiss thought at that moment, bracing herself as a couple of Beowolves broke past the defensive perimeter that Yang and Ruby had set up for Weiss to cast her dust from. Blake was currently pinned down by a couple of Ursas that wandered into the battle, and Yang was busy fending off numerous Alphas, having activated her semblance and entered a blind rage. As for Ruby…

Weiss always had a hard time following Ruby’s movement, especially when she invoked her petal burst. The speed was simply too much for her eyes to follow – one moment, she was behind Yang, trying to keep up with Yang’s explosive attacks with the sniper rifle mode of Crescent Rose, and in the next second, Weiss’ eyes were engulfed with rose petals, and she watched as Ruby’s body came between her and the Beowolves’ lunging assault. Weiss’ heart stopped as Ruby let out a scream…

…

“Bad! Landing! Strategy!”

…as she bounced away, hitting the ground a couple of times before finally slamming against the heavy trunks of a tree, her aura flickering on impact.

Weiss raised Myternaster and began shooing away what few tiny Nevermores (Lessermores?) remained, conjuring a couple of glyphs to make her way to Ruby’s side. Ruby’s head was spinning, her eyes dazed (and Weiss could have sworn she saw tiny little beowolves circling her head… was she suffering a hallucination? Did Ruby somehow share her concussion with Weiss?), but she was otherwise safe, her aura cushioning most of the blow.

Weiss cradled Ruby’s head with her arms, making sure not to rock Ruby’s head too much in fear of aggravating her injuries. Around them, a pack of Beowolves began to congregate, no doubt attracted to Weiss’ fear and panic for Ruby’s safety, but Weiss didn’t quite have the heart to worry about the Grimm now, her concern purely for her team leader. She could hear her team leader’s whisper, and, fearing for the worst, leaned in to listen to Ruby’s words:

“weiss… don’t leave me… nooooo…”

Gods, Weiss’ life was turning into one long, drawn-out comedy sketch now, wasn’t it?

Speaking of comedy sketches, the cavalry came – not in the form of a team of skilled Huntsmen and Huntresses, swooping in to rescue them from a difficult situation, but with the flailing form of Jaune Arc, resident leader of their sister team, trying his best to land a superhero landing but failing miserably. Weiss could have sworn she heard something _crack_ , but Jaune’s aura flared up around his knees, even as he was crumpled down on the ground, groaning. It was the way things went in her life now: birdies flew, Ruby made her worry endlessly, Yang made bad puns and awkwardly hit on her partner, Blake sulked when she wasn’t reading or writing fanfics with Pyrrha, Ren and Nora perfected their two-person will they or won’t they routine, and Jaune Arc was a comedy cartoon character protected by freakish amounts of aura.

“H-how are you doing, snow angel…” Jaune managed to groan out, in between yelps of pain as he lifted himself off the ground as the Beowolves circled the three of them. “…we flew here on the first available Bullhead.” He flashed Weiss that dust-damned dork smile of is, and Weiss swore she could see something sticking out of his teeth. Was he eating his damned dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets before going on this mission?

“My hero,” Weiss replied, rolling her eyes, but despite herself, she couldn’t help but giggle. “Thanks for the assist, oh Dork Knight of mine.”

“ _Oh come on!_ Not you too! It was bad enough when Yang was the only one doing it!” Jaune whined, while raising his shield to block the first Beowolf making its advance. The collision created a mighty sound, and Jaune let out a yell of exertion as he knocked back the Grimm with his shield, before following it up with a series of sword strikes. _Well, at least Pyrrha isn’t slacking on his training…_

Speaking of Pyrrha, the Invincible Girl had successfully made her superhero landing and took out a horde of Creeps that were giving Blake trouble, while Weiss heard Nora cackling loudly, no doubt riding her trusty Magnhild into battle and taking down Grimm with each swing. It took her a while to notice it as well, but she felt another hand on her shoulders and realized that it was Ren, who had cleared a path for them back to the village.

“I’ll take care of Ruby for now, Weiss.” Ren began to say, producing dust canisters from his sleeves and handed them to Weiss. “Ruby told Jaune about you needing this. We brought enough for a few engagements.”

Weiss nodded, taking the dust canisters and prepared to rejoin the battle again as Ren assisted Ruby on her feet. Jaune was now shouting battle commands at everyone, coordinating the perimeter defenses, although…

“Blake, stop chatting with Pyrrha mid-battle and focus on covering up the holes in our line! Yang, stop using that Ursa as juggling practice! This isn’t Kung Fu Ninja Slayer Ultimate Death Battle 2! And Nora! I told you to break knees, not ride the Ursa! Get down here _right now!_ ”

Weiss could hear Ruby groaning: “the first one was way better…”

With JNPR’s assistance, thankfully, the Search and Destroy mission went off without a hitch, and the two teams returned to the village to be greeted by a hearty feast the villagers had prepared as thanks for their assistance. As it turned out, wakes in the village also doubled as celebrations – while the death of loved ones _were_ instances of mourning, villages who lived outside the protection of the Kingdoms knew that too much negativity baited the Grimm, and resolved to make even wakes and funerals festive affairs, hence the large amount of food and festivities prepared for their return. Well, after that long comedy sketch of a mission, they certainly deserved a little R&R…

\---0---

“Look, how was I supposed to know Ruby was allergic to Vytal fish?” Blake defended herself.

WBY was currently making their way back to their dorm rooms, exhausted by the events of the mission, with Pyrrha and Ren trailing behind – Jaune and Nora had stayed behind to consult something with Ruby, apparently. As it turns out, part of the food the villagers prepared were a few unique delicacies only found in the vicinity, including a wide variety of fish that put Blake in a good mood. Weiss was content to sample a little bit of everything, and Yang sought out all the red meat and protein she could, but Blake was utterly _shameless_ , devouring as much fish as humanly (faunusly? Was that racist? Weiss wasn’t sure – she’d have to ask Blake later) possible.

Ruby, being Ruby, walked up to Blake, and as she was wont to do, tried to do what Blake did. Weiss really had to talk to Ruby about the way she looked up to Blake – not that Blake was a bad role model, mind you, Weiss definitely felt that the two had a lot of similarities, but it was one thing to try and read Blake’s smu- _erotica_ , and another to try and match Blake fish for fish. But the point was, Weiss should have intervened at some point! Maybe all this headache could have been avoided if she told Ruby off for trying to eat all that fish!

Well, as it turns out, Ruby was allergic to a unique type of fish found only in the local region, and the allergic reaction was rather… severe. The worst part was that it took a few hours for the symptoms to flare up, and only manifested when they got on the Bullhead back to Beacon. Weiss could only watch helplessly as Yang (and to Weiss’ surprise, Ren, although Ren explained that Nora had… unique dietary restrictions as well. Something about cashews?) treated Ruby’s symptoms, and on the Bullhead ride back, had done much to alleviate the pain, but the doctors and nurses back in Beacon made the pronouncement: Ruby was not allowed to do any strenuous activities or go on missions for a few days.

Which _was_ a problem because, for some bizarre reason known only to Ozpin himself, RWBY had another mission lined up in a few days, a simple Escort mission to a caravan bearing supplies to a nearby village. The mission wasn’t _that_ difficult, Weiss felt, and she was sure that the rest of RWBY could have handled it as a three-person team, but the logistical and bureaucratic sides of Beacon reared its ugly head.

 _There were so many forms that needed filing_. Ammunition requisition forms, Bullhead and Pilot insurance, Liabilities and Damages forms, Weapon Modification and Maintenance Budgets, Members’ Physical and Mental Health Reports… not to mention filing the results of the previous mission, _all_ _in triplicate_ , with an additional Form 15-J to fill out thanks to the mid-mission change in parameters. Weiss liked to think that she was at least knowledgeable about paperwork, but Beacon’s insistence on all this byzantine paperwork shocked her. Was Ozpin even aware that all this paperwork existed, considering how much the man seemed to despise them and delegated it all to his deputy headmistress?

And to have all the forms approved, they needed the leader to sign off on all on them, which proved impossible now that Ruby was officially moved to the inactive roster. Who knew that the one enemy that could take down the mighty team RWBY was the terror of paperwork?

“Look, I’m not sure why you can’t just take over. You’re officially second in command.” Yang asked, pointing at Blake. They had finally returned to their dorm rooms and bade goodbye to Pyrrha and Ren, and once inside, they began discussing how the next mission would fare now that they were a person short. “I know you’re not exactly fond of the position, but…”

“It’s not that,” Blake replied, removing her bow and letting her second pair of ears free. “Our next mission requires exactly four Huntsmen or Huntresses to properly secure the delivery. That’s why they outsource this kind of job to Beacon teams, instead of Huntsmen operating individually.”

With that statement, Blake moved to her shelf and pulled out one of her books. It was her limited-edition first run copy of _Ninjas of Love_ , the novel that spawned a multimedia franchise consisting of numerous books, spin-off material, video games, clothing, even a tie-in with Pumpkin Pete’s… not that Weiss was aware of any of that, she said to nobody in particular. (Weiss didn’t want to think of the wisdom of a smu- _erotic_ _literature_ novel having a tie-in with kids’ cereal. The moral and ethical ramifications horrified her to no end.) Weiss watched Blake run her fingers through the pages, Blake’s eyes skimming over passages that Ruby had highlighted in the past, pinpointing… ahem… good parts, and Weiss didn’t miss the way Blake sometimes lingered on a page for _slightly_ too long.

Finally, Blake pulled out a piece of paper that was lodged between the passage that described the protagonist and his love interest meeting for the first time. No, Weiss didn’t know the plot of the novel – she just kept hearing Blake and Ruby yammer about it in private when they thought nobody was listening!

“Look, Ruby explicitly has orders for what to do in case she’s… indisposed.” Blake began to explain, waving the piece of paper in her hand. It was one of those damned scented stationery that Ruby insisted on stocking up on anytime they went on Vale and judging from the smell and the way Blake’s nose was twitching involuntarily, it was probably strawberry-scented. Blake slowly unfolded the piece of paper, now confirmed to be a letter, and scanned it for a few seconds before letting out a big sigh.

“Well?” Weiss asked, annoyed at Blake’s insistence on mystery and the dramatic. “Are you going to tell us what’s written on the letter?”

“Sure thing, ice queen,” Blake replied, rolling her eyes, which got a chuckle from Yang. Weiss, annoyed, crossed her arms and let out a small _hmph_ , annoyed at the uselessness of her two teammates. Gods, she needed her partner right now…

 _“To my dearest team...”_ Blake began, her voice rising higher in pitch, as if she was imitating Ruby’s voice. _“If you are reading this, then I have either suffered injuries far too severe to continue, or Roman Torchwick has finally decided to up his game as my archvillain and kidnapped me for Nefarious Reasons™.”_

“Blake, are you seriously trying to do Ruby’s voice? Also, did Ruby seriously write us a last will and testament?”

“Shush, Weiss, this is getting good.”

Blake ignored the side comments and continued reading. _“...in light of such a tragedy, I have left instructions to my legal executor, Jaune Arc.”_

“Him?! What can the dunce even do?”

 _“...before you say anything,_ Weiss _,”_ Blake emphasized the last word with a lighthearted snarl, before continuing, _“Jaune knows these things. Remember how he forged his transcripts? Turns out you need a bit of knowledge in Valean law to pull that off convincingly.”_

“Rubes got you there, Weiss.”

“Oh, shush, Yang!”

_“He will give you all my instructions as leader in the event of my incapacitation. There is no need to worry - I will not make him occupy my position as team leader...”_

“Good, because I will _not_ listen to his orders.”

_“...and I am not doing so out of deference to Weiss, but because JNPR needs him more. Instead, I have asked a dear, close, personal, friend of mine to step in as leader for the time being, with explicit orders handed down from Jaune himself.”_

“Oh sweet, is P-money going to lead us?”

“It COULD be Ren. I trust his judgment, at the very least.”

Blake coughed, preventing the two from engaging in futile speculation. _“...please refer to Jaune for further instructions, but all executive decisions will now fall on her. I hope you all have a good few [insert number of recovery days here] days without me. Love, Ruby.”_

“Wait, her? So it IS Pyrrha!”

“No, unfortunately.” Jaune's voice rang out, as he entered the room. “You’re getting her instead,” he added, pointing to the pink blur behind him, vibrating in place. Before anyone could react, the pink blur shouted:

“HEEEEEEERE'S NORA!”

Weiss' screams echoed throughout Beacon that day.

\---0---

“I do _not_ understand how you can be so blasé about this, Blake.” Weiss huffed, pacing from one end of their dorm room to another. “Not that I have anything against Nora as a person, but as a _leader?_ No offense, Nora.” Weiss quickly added, nodding to the diminutive hammer wielder.

“None taken!” Nora saluted in place before she began vibrating again. Jaune placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head, which made the girl stop in place for a good _ten_ seconds before the vibrating started again, albeit in a much slower pace. _How does he do that?!_ Weiss wanted to ask, but bit her tongue, knowing that whatever she would say would unintentionally offend someone in the conversation.

“Meh,” Blake replied as she deposited Ruby's letter on top of her desk. “Nora's a perfectly capable leader.”

Yang cocked her head at that statement. “Look, I get that you have your weird JNPR fixation and everything, and I think it's adorable how you seem to like spending time with the next-dorm neighbors rather than your own team, but Nora leading us on missions...”

“Jaune wanted her to be second in command for JNPR until Ozpin and Glynda shot him down and recommended Ruby for some reason.” Blake said, without missing a beat. “If you ask me, they were _really_ determined to make sure Ruby was involved somehow in JNPR's chain of command. But _I_ trust her too. Much better than I'd trust any of us to lead ourselves at this point.”

“Well, what about JNPR, then?” Weiss followed up. “Surely they can’t operate with one person down.”

Nora perked up at Weiss’ statement, her eyes glittering like stars as she cupped her hands with her chin. “Aw, Weiss, I didn’t know you cared!”

“That’s our snow angel for you,” Jaune smirked, before dodging as Weiss slid a pillow his way with her glyphs.

“Not another word, Jaune,” Weiss hissed. “Not unless you want us to reenact mobility practice from the other week.”

“I’ll be good! I’ll be good!” Jaune yelped, retreating behind Nora’s back, and Nora, in response, put up her fists and got in a boxing stance, throwing out a series of jabs, as if taunting Weiss to continue her pillow-based assault. Weiss was tempted, too, but she opted not to do anything instead, since she was running out of ammunition. As much as venting her annoyance at Jaune was cathartic, there were more pressing matters to discuss.

“I agree with Weiss-Cream here.” Yang added, chuckling at the display of their sister team’s leader and resident powerhouse. “I appreciate you guys lending us Nora, but we don’t want to inconvenience your team.”

“Don’t worry,” Jaune beamed, producing a stack of forms before showing them off to everyone. Weiss, looking over the paperwork, noted what was so special about them:

“Membership Exchange Forms? Temporary Bequeathal of Leadership Protocols? Jaune, what in the world is all this?” For the second time that day, all the bureaucratic nonsense that Beacon engaged in was starting to give Weiss a headache.

“The last thing Ruby did before they officially took her off the active roster.” Jaune explained, collecting all the paperwork again, collecting Blake’s copies of the forms last. “We agreed to a membership exchange and filled out the forms, although _for some reason_ we forgot to add who was being exchanged for who. Once we filled out both forms, Ruby officially stepped down as leader for the duration of her rest leave and was listed as just a member of team RWBY. And wouldn’t you know it, Ruby and Nora’s names magically appeared on the forms.”

“And the Leadership protocols?” Gods, what was this nightmare of paperwork Weiss woke up in today?

“Basically, the leader is allowed to pass on their leadership duties to someone else on the team.” Jaune explained, showing off how he managed to get good scores in leadership class despite his… Jaune-ness. “This was made in the event that a team gets reshuffled or gets new members, and the second-in-command is unavailable or unwilling to step in as leader. It’s a provision added in the case of previous members either dropping out, being unable to continue… or other unfortunate circumstances.”

The mood in the room instantly dropped, Weiss felt. While they had managed to get out of the mission unscathed, too much of the events of the past two days reminded Weiss of thing she didn’t like thinking about, like the whole scenario was a morbid memento mori. From the village holding a wake, to all the close calls Ruby suffered, to the way they were all so woefully unprepared for the dangers of the impromptu Search and Destroy…

Weiss shook her head. Now wasn’t the time to think about depressing things!

“…and as you can see, Blake just signed them.” Jaune waved a piece of paper around that had Blake’s signature ( _why does it look like a cat’s paw?!_ Weiss wanted to ask) and was quickly shuffled into the rest of the papers. “So for the next few days, Ruby will be absorbed into our team, and Nora will be taking charge of team… actually, I’m not sure what to call you guys now. Or ours, for that matter.”

“You could still be Juniper,” Blake suggested. She had rearranged all her equipment and was now leaning against the window of their dorm room, her arms crossed as she observed the conversation. “JPRR. Two Rs might be weird, but at least you keep the name.”

Yang raised her right arm and began waving it around, like she was an unruly student in primary level combat school class. She was mouthing something, too: “Pick me! Pick me!”

Jaune sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes, Yang, what is it?”

“We could be VWBY.” Yang grinned, letting the statement hang for a second. “Get it? We read it as…”

“No, Yang, I am not letting your team name be ‘VB’.” Jaune sighed. “Besides, Nora clearly has ideas for team names.”

Nora, throughout this conversation, was vibrating more and more in place, and Weiss was worried for the safety of their room if Nora, at any point, was let loose from Jaune’s sight. Was she _this_ excited to lead her own team? Gods, what was Ruby _thinking?_

“Don’t worry, ladies! We’ll make sure to run this by committee!” Weiss heard Nora say, and in response cocked her eyebrows at this statement. What did Nora mean by committee, exactly? Was she going to organize everyone into logical, well-reasoned groups of people put together to achieve a specialized task or goal? Were they going to deliberate over the subject matter for a few hours, before settling everything through a referendum? Was Nora _actually_ skilled at this kind of…

“And as the person charge of this committee, I’ve decided! We’ll be going with team Newbie! NWBY for short!”

_What!_

“Nora, that isn’t even a color!” Weiss managed to sputter out, ignoring the weird looks that Blake and Yang were giving her. “Besides, there’s more members of RWBY in this team than JNPR. It just makes sense to go with another one!”

“But Nora is taking time away from her team to help us with our objective.” Blake explained, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Plus, Ruby picked her. Doesn’t that make her the leader?”

Weiss opened her mouth to respond, fully expecting the thing to escalate into another classic Weiss/Blake argument (and the Brothers knew just how much their chat logs consisted of formal debates, most of which Weiss had won, thank you very much!), but before she could, two voices intervened.

“Guys!” Jaune and Yang shouted at the same time, causing the two to cease their debate. The two blondes looked at each other, holding a silent debate with their eyes, jockeying for the position of who should speak first. Evidently, Yang won as Jaune sighed and allowed Yang to continue speaking.

“We need to focus.” Yang grinned.

“Besides, NWBY is a funnier name.” Jaune added.

“Stay out of this, Jaune!” Weiss shouted back, the veins on her forehead growing with each passing second. “I warned you about mobility practice!”

“Okay, okay!” Jaune replied, holding up his hands in supplication. “I know Nora has stuff she wants to discuss with you guys, so I’ll go now. Yang, you got anything you want to pass along to Ruby? They’re limiting visitors for now, at least until she gets released.”

“I’m good.” Yang replied, waving Jaune off. “I’ll visit Rubes tomorrow unless the doctors release her early. Take care of her for me, will you?”

Jaune grinned and replied with a rare teasing tone. “Passing on your big sister duties to me?”

“Ah, shut it, VB.” Yang gave a good-natured smirk, tossing another pillow at Jaune that Nora deflected with a left jab. “I’m not worried about her because I know you’ve got her back.”

“Just be honest and say you want to slack off the sisterly duties for once.” Jaune shot back, moving towards the door to make his escape.

“Keep that up and you lose visiting Ruby privileges, Jaune!” Yang laugh-shouted in response, grabbing her last pillow and firing it towards where Jaune and Nora stood, only for Nora to duck and Jaune to make his escape outside, closing the door behind him. The pillow collided with the door with a loud thud as Yang shouted another threat. “Don’t think I approve of you yet, Vomit Boy! Not unless you pay me back for the shoes!”

From outside, Weiss could hear Jaune’s faint voice through the dormitory walls. “I already apologized for the shoes!”

With Jaune’s departure, and subsequently nobody moving the conversation alone, another hush fell over the room. Sensing the void of conversation, Weiss wondered what else to say – she never really was the best at maintaining small talk. Thankfully, Blake (of all people! Blake!) threw out a lifeline in the form of a question.

“Come to think of it, how did you two get into our room?”

“I’m officially team leader now! Got it on my scroll and everything.” Nora waved her scroll around, and while faint, Weiss could make out the small ‘team leader’ label attached next to Nora’s name on her identification details. “Ozpin even laughed when he saw the forms Jaune-Jaune and Ruby had written up! Glynda looked miffed, but let it go once Jaune apologized. She’s real softie on us nowadays, you know? Not that you’d notice it, since she keeps giving Jaune-Jaune extra drills after combat class and makes Ren and Pyrrha attend seminars on self-confidence and assertiveness and stuff and she keeps telling me to cut back on the sugar intake even if the candy bowl on her desk is full of stuff Jaune and I like and…”

“Nora.” Blake’s voice rang out. It wasn’t one of reproach, Weiss observed, more of a gentle chiding, the same tone that Ren would adopt when Nora’s train of thoughts would run wild and unchecked. _How much time does she spend with JNPR?!_ Weiss screamed in her head.

“Nora, please.” Weiss added, hoping that her voice was just as gentle but firm as Blake’s sounded. “Now’s not the time for your stories…”

“Awww, Weissy,” Nora cooed, darting to Weiss’ side and wrapping her left arm around Weiss’ shoulders, her right arm gesturing towards the door, as if she were showing Weiss some fantastical sight. “I _know_! Jaune told me to save all the best stories for when we’ve properly adjusted as a team. But I just _know_ you’re looking forward to hearing them! And let me tell you, sister: I’m just as excited as you are!” She began squeezing Weiss’ head and shoulders tighter, and Weiss could feel Nora’s muscles tense up. _She sure looks dainty, but I think her muscles have muscles!_

“Wait, I am?” Weiss grunted out, even as Nora seemed determine to storm Castle Weiss and crush her windpipes. “You are?”

“ ** _You bet your sweet tush I am, sister_**!”

“Wait,” Yang interjected, her face a mixture of laughter and… interest? “Did you just compliment Weiss’ as-?”

“Nope!” Weiss cut Yang off, willing herself to get off her bad, even as Nora clung on to her as she marched her way to the door. “This conversation is _over_. I need some _fresh air_. Is that alright with you, leader? I would like some _space_. On my _own_. To _think_.”

Weiss wondered often if she was needlessly vague, or indirect, or just bad at expressing herself, considering how much people misunderstood her words at times. The worst of it, of course, was during the dance, with Jaune’s incessant attempts to ask her out to the dance – nowadays, the two had mended their relationship, and Weiss had a surprising… camaraderie with the leader of team JNPR, but back then she was constantly annoyed at how little the boy seemed to understand that _no_ meant _no_. Still, the whole experience taught her that perhaps her… sarcasm flew over most people’s head, and that the direct approach was needed, even if she was still mortally afraid that she would slip up and accidentally insult the people that she felt closest to, the people she considered her surrogate family.

“Oh, okay. You got it, Weiss!”

Which was why when Nora disentangled herself from Weiss, and Weiss made her way out of their dorm room, just to head _anywhere_ she could have some peace and quiet, Weiss held back her fears and regrets, the self-deprecating voice in her head that always chided her when she felt she went too far. It _was_ true, after all, that Nora’s chatter and the utter insanity of their whole situation prevented her from having a moment to herself. Ever since the mission, she had been surrounded by other people, other voices, and it was just one surprise after another, that she didn’t even have to think about their leader’s predicament and how she was _doing_. What mortified Weiss, to no end, was that Ruby had slipped her mind in the chaos, and that she hadn’t had to meditate and reflect on the day’s events. _How could she forget about her partner like that?_

Still, as Weiss made her way out of the dorms, hoping to find a quiet gazebo where she could compose her thoughts, she noticed a pink blur from the corner of her eye, darting from statue to bench to bushes, trying to tail her to… mixed results.

Weiss stopped and took a deep breath. _Well, this is awkward_. She began to talk, uttering words to nobody in particular: “Look, you don’t have to trail me like a puppy. Ruby does enough of that already.”

Weiss heard the silent ‘eep!’, and she turned around to see Nora emerge from some rose bushes, her hair,and her clothes messy with dirt and leaves. The pink shock of Nora’s hair seemed to have acquired quite the few leaves and branches in it, and it left Weiss with mixed feelings. It wasn’t like she wanted Nora to follow her!

Weiss sighed, gesturing at Nora. “Come here. You look like a child with how messy you look.”

“…you’re not mad?” Nora asked, sheepishly, like she was a child caught stealing from the cookie jar. _Almost like Ruby_. “I know you said you wanted to be alone, but…”

“Never mind that,” Weiss replied, consciously lowering the tone of her voice to be gentler. “You’ve got a lot of… stuff on your hair.”

The two made their way onto one of the benches that were littered on the long pathway to main buildings of Beacon. Once the two were seated, Weiss produced a comb from one of the pouches on her skirt and, turning Nora around, caressed Nora’s hair, running her fingers through the pink-haired girl’s locks. “You should be more mindful of your hair, you know. It’s a shame to ruin it for something as silly as this.”

“Thanks,” Nora replied, and Weiss swore she could see Nora’s smile, even from behind. “Ren always made sure to take care of my hair, even way back when we were kids.”

Weiss nodded, and with a practiced motion, began running her comb through Nora’s hair. At the same time, Weiss began picking out the leaves and dirt that had lodged themselves in the hair of her… friend (a word that Weiss never thought she would use for the pink-haired girl). It was the perfect time to do so, out in the courtyard, too: Beacon in the afternoons, especially as the Fall approached, were peaceful affairs, the winds gentle and soothing, and the shade of the trees gradually turning redder and redder, plus there were few students loitering around, either because they were in classes or were sent off for missions. That gave Weiss the time to just focus on Nora’s hair and ignore the swirling thoughts in her head. The peaceful surroundings had calmed her, somewhat, and despite herself, she began humming one of her songs.

To her surprise, Nora began humming along.

“I didn’t think you were a fan,” Weiss chided, running her fingers across Nora’s scalp to check for stray grime or small insects that may have lodged in Nora’s hair. “I figured I wouldn’t be as big in Vale or Mistral.”

“Pyrrha thought the same thing, too.” Nora replied, her tone considerably more somber. “But no, I didn’t have any idea you did music – but Jaune keeps playing your mixtape in the dorms. After hearing him belt out _Mirror, Mirror_ for the twentieth time in the shower, you remember things.”

“Oh Gods,” Weiss exclaimed. “That must have been torture!”

It was for Weiss, anyway. As part of an ill-fated attempt to transform her into an Atlesian pop star, her father had commissioned some of the best musicians and producers in Atlas, both of the classical and pop variety, to assist Weiss in creating an ensemble of songs and released it as a mixtape that caught lots of attention in Atlas _and_ Mantle. Weiss enjoyed it too, at the start, but at some point, it had stopped being fun and became a _chore_ , part of her duties as heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. At some point, she had become a poster girl for the SDC to generate good publicity, while unbeknownst to her the SDC was exploiting its labor force and indirectly causing lots of deaths, Faunus and Human. Her songs about loneliness and being trapped in a cage, contrasted with _actual_ suffering and abuse outside her privileged walls.

 _Overthinking again_.

“Well, our Fearless Leader doesn’t exactly have the _best_ singing voice.” Nora admitted, sheepishly. “He can talk about head voices and chromatic arrangements and sudden key changes and high notes and all that jazz, but he can’t just _sing_ to save his life.”

“Maybe he should just stick to his guitar, then.” Weiss joked, extracting a particularly stubborn twig from Nora’s hair. She ran her comb through Nora’s hair again, trying to calm down Nora’s stubborn hair to little effect. “How about you? Do you sing?”

“Naw. Just in the shower.” Nora grinned, and the two allowed silence to wash over them as Weiss continued to brush Nora’s hair.

After a pause, Nora added. “Hey, I know you wanted to be left alone, but Jaune-Jaune said…”

“I can imagine,” Weiss cut Nora off. “Keep an eye out for all of us, right? That sounds like something him and Ruby would decide.”

“…yeah.” Nora replied, turning to Weiss with an apologetic look on her face. “For what it’s worth, he also told me to stay away and let you process stuff on your own. I… I can leave if you want some space.”

Weiss was glad for Nora’s respect for her boundaries, but shook her head, and motioned for her to continue talking. Nora nodded, whispering: “It’s about Ruby, isn’t it?”

“Kind of. It’s… complicated.” Weiss explained. “It’s _about_ Ruby, sure, but also stuff _around_ Ruby, if that makes sense.”

“I don’t get it.” Nora admitted. “But as your temporary leader, you can confide with me the same way you confide with Ruby. I’m a good listener, I promise.”

 _Of course you are, Nora_ , Weiss thought, but didn’t have the courage to say out loud. She didn’t want to invite a misunderstanding, after all. On the horizon, the sun was beginning to set, and Weiss was not looking forward to the darkness.

\---0---

With Nora ascending to leadership status, the two teams had to follow standard bunking protocol, which meant that Nora moved over the RWBY dorm to facilitate “better teamwork and camaraderie” – Ozpin’s words – while Ruby, once she was discharged, would be moving to the JNPR dorm for the duration of her membership. It was not lost on Weiss as well that JNPR didn’t have any missions that required leaving the protection of Vale, and in fact, they were mostly doing… paperwork. Seriously, were they training to be Huntresses or secretaries?

There were other matters to be concerned about, regarding Ruby temporarily moving to the JNPR dorm, but they were easily solved. Custody over Zwei was the most pressing matter, of course, Weiss felt, and while she wasn’t fond of the idea that Zwei would be following his owner to the JNPR dorms (and subsequently denying Weiss her precious Zwei cuddle time), it was a necessary sacrifice, considering Blake would have raised a fuss over Zwei in their room without Ruby to keep the adorable corgi in check.

(Blake wasn’t fooling Weiss, though – she _saw_ Blake cuddling with the corgi when she thought nobody was looking! And Zwei’s snacks were slowly decreasing each time Weiss checked, even if she was carefully rationing them out for the dog! _I’m on to you, Blake Belladonna!_ )

Considering that the dog split its time hanging out in RWBY’s dorm, or JNPR’s whenever they went out on a mission, as well as Oobleck’s office (the two having struck up an easy friendship, and Oobleck ensuring the dog was allowed on-campus), Weiss was just glad that Zwei wasn’t going to be left unattended with her owner indisposed. Still, it meant that Weiss was robbed one of her nightly pastimes: caressing Zwei’s fur and telling him what a good widdle boy he was, yes he was!

“Alright, ladies!” Nora announced, having ferried over enough clothing and daily necessities to last a week to the RWBY dorms. “We only have, what, three days before we go on that Escort mission, so we need to work out our team dynamics by then! I know this is just temporary, but we’re gonna make it work! We’re gonna be the Best. Team. Ever! Right, Team NWBY?!”

“…sure?” Blake replied, her eyes not leaving her book. She was settled on her bed, the bottom bunk of hers and Yang’s improvised bunk bed, and the book in her hand had the imaginative title _The Kunoichi’s Lost Passion 2: The Kunoichi’s Shroud_ (that Weiss was certainly _not_ looking forward to borrowing, thank you very much, try not to make boorish assumptions about my reading habits!) which Blake was currently halfway through. Yang, meanwhile, was on the top bunk, playing with two paddleballs while lying on her bed, blissfully unaware of what was happening around her besides the sound of the balls making contact on wood. She couldn’t even muster the energy to utter a grunt in reply!

“Ignore Blake, Nora,” Weiss offered, in her most conciliatory tone. After the events of the afternoon, Weiss felt a certain obligation to respond to Nora more… positively, if only to accommodate Ruby’s wishes. She trusted Nora, she really did – but as leader? That was something they were on the fence with. Still, if both Ruby and Jaune were willing to entrust Nora to them, surely there was some method to the madness, right?

“I’m sure Blakey’s all excited inside!” Nora replied, pumping her fists into the air. “Anyway, as team leader, I’ve prepared a list of team-building activities we’ll be doing for the next few days!

As if on cue, the three remaining members of WBY received notifications on their scrolls. Weiss opened the message, a file uploaded on the team RWBY group chat, with Nora recently added. It was a word document, and to Weiss’ horror, it was nearly a hundred pages long, with an intricate series of pie charts, graphs, tables, and annotations off to the side. It was more complicated than an Oobleck lecture, messier than a Port story, and more demanding than a Glynda combat session, and Weiss wasn’t sure how they were meant to read all of it in a night.

“Nora?” Yang asked. “Are we… supposed to read all this by tonight?”

“Yep!” Nora replied. “I know you all can do it!”

“Did you write all this?” Blake followed, her cat ears drooping ever so slightly.

“Jaune and I worked on it all morning! Ren helped edit!”

“How did he- never mind.” Weiss began to say, stopping herself when she realized how futile the question was. “So, this lists our plan of action for the next three days?”

“Along with extra notes, suggestions, statistical evidence to prove my activities are beneficial!”

Weiss sighed. “Nora, why don’t you give us the short version?” She was _not_ going to read this monstrosity if she could help it.

“Well…”

\---0---

Weiss wasn’t _completely_ ignorant in the ways of the kitchen, despite rumors to the contrary. Sure, she had slipped up once or twice in calling the kitchen in the common rooms the “food room”, but darn it, she was bilingual, and you sometimes suffered from lapses in translation when code-switching from the Atlesian tongue to Valean! Besides, “food room” was a completely valid way of describing their kitchens, what with all the food those mother hens Jaune and Ren kept stocked up in there!

The cupboards were overflowing from all sorts of foodstuffs (and to Yang’s consternation, very little in the way of cup noodles or other such instant necessities) as well as fresh ingredients to cook at a moment’s notice. There were also sections dedicated to the team’s personal preferences, like Ruby’s stash of strawberries, all sourced from local farmer’s marts, or Jaune’s stockpile of Pumpkin Pete’s Marshmallow Flakes, and Weiss couldn’t help but stifle a laugh when she noticed that a good chunk of his cereal boxes had Pyrrha’s face on it. Pyrrha protested every time Jaune took out a cereal box with her face adorning the front, but couldn’t say no when JNPR’s Fearless Leader insisted that, yes, he enjoyed eating the cereal even if it wasn’t good for him! There was even a section in the pantry dedicated to Blake’s tuna, one labeled ‘emergency’ tuna (for when Beacon inevitably falls under siege, Blake claimed) and one labeled ‘Personal Property of Blake Belladonna’. Weiss had made the mistake of accidentally grabbing food from that section one night she was feeling peckish, and it took a lot of apologizing and promises of imported Atlesian tuna to assuage the angry Faunus.

But she had to admit that, yes, she wasn’t an expert in the kitchen, which was why she was currently digging through Ren’s secret stash of pancake ingredients to discover how to make pancakes.

The first thing on Nora’s team-building activities was a ‘breakfast challenge’. Early the next day, after the four had settled into their beds (Nora occupied Ruby’s bed and, to Weiss’ consternation, was eager to compete with Yang over the title of Snore Queen. Current score: a draw!), Nora woke up the rest of their team with a loud whistle that Weiss swore sounded familiar, like something from a distant memory almost a semester ago. It was a godawful time to wake up, as it wasn’t even dawn yet, but as Nora dragged the rest of the team out of their bed (Yang grumbling the entire while, while Blake had terrible bags under her eyes, no doubt having _just_ fallen asleep after a particularly intense marathon reading session with her _Kunoichi_ novel), they ran into JPR_. Jaune and Pyrrha were clad in their running clothes (and Weiss did her best not to salivate over Pyrrha, who honestly looked great in whatever she wore… and Jaune was alright too, she _guessed_ ), while Ren was wearing his “Do _Not_ Do Anything to the Cook” apron, evidently preparing to cook breakfast for the two once they had finished their jog.

“Breakfast challenge?” Ren directed at Weiss, a small smirk forming at the corner of his lips. He was trailing behind Weiss as they made their way to the kitchen.

“Unfortunately,” Weiss replied, rubbing her eyes. Nora didn’t even give them the time to wash up! “If you could brew me some coffee, Ren, that would be grand.”

“Heathen.” Ren shot back, his smirk growing wider by the second. “Perhaps I will slip you some of my tea instead. It is not as if you will notice in your current groggy state.”

“I’ll convert you to the coffee faction yet.” With that, the two arrived at the common room kitchen. (Blake and Yang, mysteriously, had disappeared, while Nora excused herself to "search for ingredients.") Weiss opened her scroll, flicking through the list of ingredients on the site she had looked up on the CCTNet. Knowing of Nora’s… dietary habits, Weiss was determined to look for a healthier alternative, but knew that Nora wasn’t going to accept anything else that weren’t pancakes, or maybe Jaune’s (slightly) burnt toast, eggs, and bacon. She had reached out for her selected ingredients, and moved to grab the cashew milk in the fridge, but–

“What are you _doing_?”

Ren’s voice shocked Weiss, who was used to hearing his calmer, more subdued tone. The silent monk of team JNPR had grabbed Weiss’ arm, preventing her from reaching the cashew milk from the fridge, and Weiss was surprised at the display of emotion from the normally taciturn boy. The Ren staring at her now was exuding _danger_ , his eyes not simply staring daggers at her, but unleashing a rain of knives towards her like something out of a bad Mistralian cartoon about time-stopping vampires and magical sunlight powers.

“Weiss.”

“Huh?”

“You know I love you.” _What?!_

“As a friend, right?” _Please say yes! Please say yes! Nora will_ kill _me!_

“Yes.” _Thank the brothers!_

“Good.”

“But cooking pancakes is _not_ rocket science.”

“It may as well be with these instructions! What in the world does ‘sift’ even mean?!”

Weiss winced as Ren pinched the bridge of his nose, visibly disappointed at Weiss. Weiss knew that she wasn’t… the most adept at the whole “cooking” thing, but she had hoped that having instructions on hand would make the process significantly easier. Nora had proposed that they spend the next few days cooking breakfast for each other, and for today, Blake was assigned to make Yang’s breakfast and vice-versa, while Weiss and Nora were to do the same. After yesterday’s debacle, Weiss was eager to make it up to Nora, and decided that pancakes were the way to go, even if she had never had much experience in anything breakfast related besides coffee.

“You know, you really do baby Nora a lot.” Ren smiled, loosening his grip on her arm and helping Weiss rearrange all the things she had sought out for her pancakes – the flour, the salt, the eggs – as well as fixing his carefully arranged stock of food in the cupboard, since Weiss had made a mess of things in her mad dash to find the (Ren shuddered) pancake mix. Okay, so Weiss couldn’t make pancakes from scratch!

“Can you blame me? Nora always seems to be one step away from inserting her fingers into a electrical socket.” Weiss winced at her own statement. _Am I being too hard on Nora? I merely wanted to tell a joke_.

Thankfully, Ren didn’t seem offended by her statement. “I’ve lost count of how many times she _has_ tried to do that. I’m glad she unlocked her semblance when she did.”

“So what’s wrong with my recipe, Great Sensei Ren?” With the two having calmed down from the sudden shock of Ren’s movement, Weiss decided it was best to ask directly for help from the master. It wasn’t like Nora explicitly forbade her from asking for help! “Nora will need to use the kitchen soon, too, so I can’t let her know you helped.”

“For starters, Nora is allergic to cashews and cashew milk.”

Weiss nearly did a spit take, even if she wasn’t drinking any water. “Wait, what?!”

“Yes. Did you not read the document? There is a section for dietary habits, including any allergies Team NWBY may have.” Ren asked, raising his eyebrows in disbelief. “We made sure to consult with Ruby on that one.”

“The document is _one hundred pages long_ , Ren! I could barely skim the first five pages! I’m not even sure how Pyrrha can read these monstrosities Jaune keeps writing, and she actually _likes_ Jaune the most out of everyone here!”

“For the record,” Ren corrected, “we all like and appreciate Jaune and his efforts, even if they can be overwhelming at times. Also, Pyrrha does not exactly… read through all of them. She delegates the task to Blake, and Blake summarizes for Pyrrha and the rest of us.”

 _What the heck, Blake!_ Weiss screamed in her head. No wonder Yang kept teasing her about her supposed JNPR obsession...

“Is that why she has this unexplainable mistrust of nuts? I thought she wasn’t just fond of them!”

“Oh, no, it runs much deeper than that. Nora believes that anyone who enjoys nuts are, in her words, ‘evil incarnate, like a misbehaving housecat who thinks she owns everything. No offense, Blake.’”

Weiss sighed. “I will never understand Nora. The other day, she was complaining about some ice cream nonsense. She thinks you shouldn’t put strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla together. She calls it the spawn of the Grimm or some such nonsense, I think?”

“I try not to probe too deeply into her logic, lest I be sucked into the madness.” Ren seemed to be quoting some obscure Mistralian koan, and Weiss wasn’t interested in pushing the question further. Instead, she sighed and looked for appropriate milk to use in her pancake batter. She hoped that Nora would like it, at least! A few minutes of silence reigned between them as she read through the recipe again while Ren prepared the ingredients for both his own planned menu and Weiss’ attempt at pancakes.

“Gods, how did you get so good at this?” Weiss asked, as she was observing Ren, who was preparing everything and writing down an impromptu recipe on his scroll. “From what you’ve told me, you two haven’t had the… easiest of childhoods.”

“I will admit to finding it difficult at first,” Ren nodded as he finished typing the recipe on his scroll and sent it over to Weiss. “I sent you my personal recipe, by the way. Feel free to ask questions if you are confused. I will watch over you as you cook.”

“Thank you.”

“As for your question… it clicked for me when I started thinking of cooking as practice for combat.”

“Hm? What do you mean, Ren?”

“Think of it this way.” Ren’s tone grew more serious, losing the playful banter that it had had earlier in their conversation. “Cooking requires concentration. If you are not paying attention every step of the way, the result may prove disastrous. You have no time to think about distractions. You _cannot_ afford to be distracted by useless thoughts.”

Ren paused, closing his eyes for a second before turning to Weiss with a serious look in his face. “I learned a phrase while travelling through Mistral. In the Central Mistralian tongue, we say 仕方がない. “It cannot be helped.” Instead of dwelling on the past, we can only concentrate on what is front of us. Cooking and combat are very much similar in that regard.”

_Distractions. Yes. We cannot afford to think about things that cannot be helped._

With that, the two proceeded to cook that day’s breakfast for their respective teammates, Ren assisting Weiss when she seemed over his head. Thankfully, Ren’s instructions were clearer and easier to follow, so Weiss was able to achieve most of it on her own.

(The breakfast itself went surprisingly well, even if Yang complained that salmon and rice with miso soup was not appropriate breakfast food, and Blake was appalled at the salt content of Yang’s “semi-instant” noodles. Jaune and Pyrrha, unsurprisingly, enjoyed Ren’s offerings. Nora seemed to like the pancakes, at least!)

\---0---

**“Goodbye jelly belly, hello six-pack!”**

“n-nora… i dont have a jelly belly… and i dont even want a six-pack…”

Weiss winced, feeling sorry for Blake’s suffering. She recalled a time a few weeks back when Nora had somehow convinced her to join in what Nora called a “short workout session”. Weiss had reasonable faith in her physical capabilities, even if she wasn’t the stamina monster that fighters like Yang or Pyrrha (or Jaune, she begrudgingly had to admit) were, but Weiss believed that she was at least of average Huntress strength and speed. Nora Valkyrie had thrown that assumption out the window, and now Weiss feared that her existence ruined the averages for everyone else.

It was no secret that Nora was a workout fiend – out of their little group, it was her, Yang, Pyrrha, and Jaune who spent the most time in the gym, and by all accounts, she was _the_ most passionate one in the group, putting the fear of Grimm into even Pyrrha. _Pyrrha!_ At one point in the first semester, she had spotted three-fourths of team JNPR sporting bandages and casts they claimed were incurred from working out with Nora, and while Weiss couldn’t believe it (they all had Aura, for Gods’ sake! Jaune had a freakish amount of it too!) she had no choice to accept that perhaps there was a grain of truth to the matter when Nora dragged her off to exercise, a memory she had endeavored to bury in her subconscious.

After breakfast, Nora had declared that they were going to do some workouts in Beacon’s gym, and Yang immediately agreed, even though Weiss and Blake uttered their complaints. Still, leadership privileges overrode democracy (truly, they were living in authoritarian times) and soon team NWBY found themselves in workout clothes, staring at the seldom-used Beacon gym. To Weiss’ surprise, Pyrrha was also there, having just finished what was evidently an exhausting workout.

“Well, ladies, let’s partner up!” Nora declared, handing Weiss a sheet of paper.

“Nora, what’s this?” Weiss asked, confused at what Nora handed to her.

“It’s your set! I designed you one with Yang’s help,” Nora explained, as if that actually told Weiss _anything_. “I’m taking Blake to train with me, and I’m leaving you with Pyrrha.”

Before Blake could offer any resistance, Nora had grabbed her by the arms (Blake letting out a small ‘eep!’) and dragged her to who knows where, surprising Weiss, who was confident that Nora was under strict orders from Jaune or Ruby to keep an eye out on Weiss specifically. Pyrrha, who had just finished rearranging the weights that she was using, approached Weiss and greeted her with her customary “Hello again!”

“Well, hello, Pyrrha. Not working out with Jaune today?” Weiss was trying to make sense of the numbers written on her sheet, to little success. What did _reps_ even mean? What were _sets_?

Pyrrha let out a small giggle at Weiss’ confused look at her workout set. “He’s… busy today.” She scratched the back of her head and gave Weiss an awkward smile. “Nora asked me to help you out, both as a spotter and as your… trainer, seeing as you rarely go to the gym in the first place.”

“That’s nice of you,” Weiss replied. “I figured she would pair me up with Yang for some kind of team-building exercise.”

Instead, Weiss spied Yang head straight for the punching bags, her hair flickering with the slightest signs of fire emanating from her golden locks. She felt bad for whoever maintained those bags, because Yang Xiao Long never took it easy on _anything_. “Is she _really_ not going to warm up?”

“We all work out in our own way,” Pyrrha offered, her tone sounding like that of a mother who found difficulty controlling her unruly children. “Besides, you and Blake are the ones who need guidance, and Yang isn’t… exactly very good at teaching.”

Well, that was fair. Pyrrha began explain the piece of paper to Weiss, explaining the concept of sets and reps to the heiress, and once they had finished the short lecture, Pyrrha began to guide Weiss through a couple of warm-up routines, a couple of stretches, squats, push-ups – simple stuff that they were used to doing before combat drills. Weiss was surprised, considering she had heard Nora insist on JNPR doing marathon-length runs in the past.

Weiss was currently doing some side lunges while Pyrrha was watching on, and, finding the task simple, Weiss began conversing with Pyrrha. “I’m shocked she isn’t making us do anything ludicrous, like, say, making us run around Beacon or do two-hundred push-ups for warmup.”

From out of earshot, Nora’s voice rang out again: **“Keep up, Creampuff!”**

To which Blake’s voice aired out, albeit without energy: “youre not human…”

Pyrrha smiled at the exchange. “From the sound of things, it seems like Blake is doing exactly that.” She motioned for Weiss to stop, and when Weiss did, she moved closer and user her hands to correct Weiss’ stance. “Your stance here is all wrong. Your center of balance is slightly off like this.”

Weiss did her best not to shudder as Pyrrha used her hands to correct the position of Weiss’ arms and legs, adjusting her stance rather forcibly. Weiss couldn’t help it! She idolized the Invincible Girl, and now her idol was personally training her! That dunce Jaune was certainly very lucky to be treated like this _every single day!_

Once they had finished warming up, Pyrrha led Weiss to the bench press, causing the heiress to raise her eyebrows in confusion.

“Really? We’re doing bench presses? I’m a beginner. Besides, I’m not sure what purpose this kind of exercise serves.”

“We _do_ have Aura, you know.” Pyrrha explained as she set up the barbell and the weights on the weight training bench. “We can afford significantly harder workout routines than civilians thanks to Aura, although it also means we need to strain ourselves more to actually have an effect on our bodies.”

“What, so this is both Aura training _and_ physical enhancement?”

“Yes,” Pyrrha replied. “You may not necessarily want to bulk up but exerting your muscles and increasing your stamina will be helpful out in the field.”

Weiss sighed, acquiescing to Pyrrha’s reasoning, and got on the workout bench. Pyrrha positioned herself by the weights, ready to assist as Weiss lowered the barbells onto her chest. While the weights were _heavy_ , Weiss found that they were manageable.

“Huh. How heavy are these things?” Weiss asked, pushing the barbells _up_. One rep down!

“As heavy as they need to be,” Pyrrha replied in a tone that made Weiss shudder. _Why does she sound so threatening?!_ As Pyrrha replied, Weiss lowered the barbells again, her arms straining against the weight, which seemed to have doubled from the last rep she tried. Her arms began to shake as she pushed her weights up again.

“…Pyrrha?” Weiss managed to grunt as she made another rep. “You wouldn’t… be using… your semblance… right?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Pyrrha replied, smiling, her hands behind her back. Weiss was confident that if she could see Pyrrha’s hands, they would be glowing black.

From somewhere that Weiss couldn’t tell, thanks to the weights weighing on her, she heard Nora scream again:

“ ** _Come on, my granny punches harder!_** ”

“that’s…hard…to believe…

“ ** _Seriously, she is scary strong_!**”

Weiss regretted celebrating getting Pyrrha instead of Nora as her workout partner. This was just as bad!

The rest of the morning had gone as expected, with Pyrrha making Weiss do all sorts of exercises with all sorts of machines. In between lifting ludicrous amounts of weights in various positions (Weiss didn’t want to hear about barbell squats or deadlifting _ever again_ ), Pyrrha made her run on the treadmill, get on the monkey bars, do pull-ups… all sorts of nonsense, Weiss felt. There were a few saving graces, like one where all she had to do was step up and down on a box, supposedly to train her calves… although Weiss felt her legs grow heavier and heavier as she took her steps on the box, and was reasonably confident it had something to do with the metal bands that Pyrrha made her wear on her legs. She was sure, too, that she was supposed to take a few minutes of rest after each workout she finished, but Pyrrha was _relentless_ , and by an hour in, Weiss was _utterly spent_. She was so focused on finishing her drills, in fact, that she didn’t notice Yang join Pyrrha in spotting her.

“Oh, wow, Weiss-cream, Pyrrha sure put you through the paces.” Weiss was sprawled out on the floor, utterly defeated, while Pyrrha and Yang were sitting on a bench. Yang was wiping herself with a towel, and Weiss could have sworn she could see, off the corner of her eye, that there were a dozen punching bags, all crumpled and battered in a corner. _What in the world did she do to those things?!_

“Yang? What are you doing here?” Weiss was dumbfounded that Yang not only did her workout on her own, but that she was still energetic enough to make fun of Weiss. “Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, hanging around Blake by now?”

“I don’t spend _all_ my time around Blake.” Yang defended herself as Weiss rolled her eyes at the blatant lie the blonde brawler uttered. “Besides, by the sounds of things, I do _not_ want to be involved with Nora and Blake right now. Nora’s in full boot camp mode, and even I can’t keep up with that.”

Weiss could hear Nora uttering a litany of curses and obscenities from the other room over, the language making even _Yang_ blush with how aggressive it was, while Weiss could have sworn Blake was on the verge of crying ( _did I just hear Blake beg for mercy?!)_. Pyrrha was rubbing her head in embarrassment over her teammate but pressed on.

“Oh, it isn’t _that_ bad,” Pyrrha assured Yang. “Trust me, Jaune and I do far more strenuous workouts than this, along with cardio and combat training.”

“Wait, you _still_ do cardio training besides all this? What do you call running on the treadmill earlier?” Weiss managed to utter, using up what little air was in her lungs.

“Basic fitness,” Pyrrha simply replied.

“Gods,” Weiss panted. “Why do you people _do_ this to yourself? I could barely think, and now my body is in so much pain.”

Yang crouched next to Weiss and ruffled her hair. “It’s okay, Weiss-cream. You get used to it.”

“I _hope_ not.” Weiss rolled her eyes. “I don’t see the point to all this. It’s all mindless repetition.”

“In a way, that _is_ the point,” Pyrrha explained. “Part of the benefits of working out like this is the way you just… zone out.”

“Yeah,” Yang added, “the thing with physical exertion is, you don’t have time to think about stuff. Once you get in the zone, your body moves automatically. That kind of muscle memory is useful for combat.”

Weiss found the phrasing interesting. “Ren said the same thing earlier about cooking.”

“Well, it’s true. There are a lot of similarities between the activities.” Pyrrha giggled, wiping her own sweat with her towel. “The point of activities like this is just as much self-improvement as it is a form of…meditation, shall we say. A way to clear the mind of stress and confusion.”

“I didn’t think there was a philosophical point to working out.” Weiss huffed, forcing herself to get up despite the aching in her muscles. Gods, did she need a shower. “I just assumed the goal was physical improvement, not… mental stress relief.”

“Why not both?” Pyrrha reached out with her hand to help Weiss get up. “Training serves multiple purposes. We overcome the physical limitations of our body, and at the same time, it is a mental battle, with the goal of surpassing who we were the previous day, even if our mind says no.”

“Yeah, you shoulda seen VB when he first started working out.” Yang added, getting up to stretch her arms and legs. “Too busy moping about not being good enough or whatever, too busy griping about how unfair Pyrrha’s training regimen was. A few days of intensive training later and he ain’t complaining anymore.” As if to punctuate her point, she punched her left palm with her right fist.

“It _is_ difficult to think about your insecurities when you throw yourself into physical exertion, yes.” Pyrrha nodded.

That made Weiss pause, as if Pyrrha’s words were prodding at _something_ in the back of her head, trying to burrow out of the ground that was her surface thoughts. There _was_ something bothering her, wasn’t it? Something that she had been worrying over for the past two days, but never got the chance to address ever since Nora was appointed leader and it was just one crazy activity after another. It was _almost_ as if she wasn’t being given the chance to think about anything _but_ Nora…

“Pyrrha,” Weiss started to say, the thoughts slowly forming in her head now that the pain of physical exertion was lessening. “Where exactly is Jaune, right now?”

“Jaune?” Yang replied on Pyrrha’s behalf. “He’s with Ru-“

“Oh dear!” Pyrrha suddenly exclaimed, as if remembering something important. Weiss heard a strange noise, like a _vrrr_ , and suddenly she found Yang collapsed on the floor, apparently having slipped on… nothing? Pyrrha paid no attention to it, however, and added, “It’s almost lunch time!”

Weiss tilted her head, confused at Pyrrha’s tone, as she never struck Weiss as the type to be this… enthusiastic about lunch. Still, Weiss felt the pangs of hunger in her stomach, which overrode whatever thoughts were in her head. “Sure… sure. Lunch sounds good right now.”

As Yang made her way back to her feet, grumbling, Weiss and Pyrrha walked towards the showers to change. Weiss thought about calling out to Nora and Blake but refrained from doing so when she heard Nora’s voice ring out again.

**“Come on, Blakey! We gotta toughen you up! You think you're gonna go out there and save the world without thunder thighs?!”**

“thunder thighs… derogatory…”

**“Not with that attitude!”**

\---0---

The last straw for Weiss came after lunch, when Nora had declared that they were going to do some Dust training.

“Are you seriously planning on running us ragged the entire day? Honestly, I’d rather we attended classes at this rate. Can we not have the afternoon off?” Weiss had argued over lunch.

“What, and sit in another Port lecture?” Yang scoffed. She was busy shoveling mashed potatoes in her mouth, and Weiss wondered if Yang’s mouth was a vacuum cleaner with the way it seemed to ingest the mashed potatoes with little difficulty.

“It can’t be helped. We got double-booked for missions, so they gave us the week off for classes.” Blake added, in between bites of her swordfish. Weiss _still_ wasn’t sure why Beacon procured whole swordfish for its students, seeing as Blake seemed to be the only one to _eat_ them, but she wasn’t going to complain if it kept Blake pacified. “I’d much rather this than JPRR, though. Did you hear they were assigned processing a lot of the paperwork for the leader swap instead of going out in the field for a mission? Honestly, I prefer going on missions rather than attending Port classes. It’s a shame to miss out on Oobleck or Glynda classes, though.”

“Of course, _you_ wouldn’t mind skipping Port classes, since you get all your Grimm Studies notes from Pyrrha!” Not that Weiss was jealous that Pyrrha willingly shared her notes with Blake and Jaune and not her! “Besides, at least that way Ruby can participate in JNPR missions even if she isn’t allowed to leave the campus!”

“Enough griping, ladies! We’re going to need to know each other’s combat capabilities if we’re going out on the field together, so Dust practice is a no-brainer! Besides, I already made Jaune fill out the forms to reserve the training room! Do you have _any_ idea how long it takes to fill out those forms?” Nora responded, munching on some peas and carrots. Pyrrha only smiled as she ate her salad, while Ren was sipping on some tea he had in a thermos. Jaune was, just like the entire morning, nowhere to be found.

Blake and Yang, predictably, snuck off to practice on their own, arguing that Yang didn’t really have a wide variety of dust to use besides the shotgun shells on Ember Celica ,while Blake wasn’t exactly flush with the Lien to pay for all the dust needed to practice her Dust Shadow clones. Weiss was left staring at Nora, who was, once again, vibrating in place, Magnhild in hand.

“Are you _sure_ you want to do this, Nora?” Weiss warned, grasping Myrtenaster and adjusting the revolver chambers to ensure they were in working condition. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea…”

“Aw, come on, Weissy! It’s gonna be fun!” Nora replied, giving Magnhild a few practice swings.

In theory, Nora’s proposal made sense: Weiss’ Time Dilation glyphs operated by running Lightning Dust through her semblance, causing a powerful supercharging effect on the recipient’s body and mind that made them move far faster than humanly possible for the duration of the glyph. Nora, after learning about the unique properties of the Time Dilation glyphs, was excited to test out how the lightning dust-enhanced glyph would interact with her own semblance. Weiss hoped that it would merely enhance Nora’s speed like it did for everyone else. Nora hoped to cause a big explosion, somehow.

Nothing seemed to go Weiss’ way today.

Weiss positioned herself a few feet away from Nora, who was standing in the middle of the training room, near the edge of the training ring they used for combat classes. She had chosen this location to test the maximum range that she could cast her Time Dilation Glyphs, hoping to make better use of the glyphs unlike her _last_ usage of it. (Weiss was adamant that it was _not_ because, as some may insinuate, she was worried about the damage that Nora would cause) After checking for the third time that her revolver chambers were operating correctly, Weiss let out a sigh.

Off in the control center for the training room, Ren, who had a free period, was operating the panels, conjuring a couple of training robots for Nora to practice on. Around twenty or so drones the size of Nora without heels floated lazily to surround Nora, each armed with machine guns that shot practice rounds. He looked at Weiss, giving her the signal that things were ready on his end, and Weiss turned to Nora, who nodded.

 _Well, here goes nothing_.

Weiss shifted the revolver chamber to the lightning dust vial and began channeling her semblance. The way her semblance worked was that she unleashed the dust from the tip of her rapier and ran it through her glyphs, which she then manipulated to move around the battlefield. Given proper preparation and training, Weiss was capable of controlling the battlefield by conjuring multiple glyphs and unleashing specialized dust attacks from each glyph, but Weiss’ mastery over her glyphs was still lacking to do anything more than surround her opponent with glyphs and pelt them with icicles. Still, that wasn’t necessary for what she needed to do.

She stabbed the tip of Myrtenaster into the ground, and, with a click of her rapier, ran lightning dust onto a glyph that she conjured on her feet. Boosting the glyph with her aura, Weiss willed the glyph to slide over to where Nora was standing. As it made its way to the Valkyrie, it turned a golden-yellow and began to resemble the inner workings of a clock.

Weiss watched as the glyph let out a crackle of electricity beneath Nora’s feet, and in response, Nora seemed to glow in power, her semblance activating as the lightning overtook her body. At the same time, the glyph began to enhance Nora, her body glowing brightly as she was engulfed by pure _power_. Nora’s eyes began to shimmer with Aura, and for a moment, Weiss could swear she was looking at a goddess of thunder.

It was difficult to explain what followed. Weiss felt a sudden burst of _power_ crash like waves against the rocks that were her body. She felt a shockwave – no, _shockwaves_ , emanate from different points of the arena, like the aftershocks of powerful crushing blows impacting against heavy armor. Her body was buffeted by the impact, forcing her to take a few steps back, and the sight in front of her eyes was almost impossible to comprehend. One second, she was looking at around twenty training drones surrounding Nora, and in the next, all she could see were the scrapped remains of mechanical beings rendered useless in a few blows, smashed apart by the hammer of a furious goddess. Each drone that was scrapped was crackling with pink electricity, and Weiss felt that they were twitching in pain, as if they were human beings who could not comprehend what had just happened to them and were struggling to just _move_. It was, Weiss admitted to herself, an awe-inducing sight.

What wasn’t a pretty sight, however, was the sight of Nora, who had dropped to one knee, holding onto Magnhild to keep herself upright. Her body was still crackling with excess energy, electricity shooting out of her body in short bursts, as if they were trying to find a way to expel themselves from Nora’s body. Unfortunately, the effects of the Time Dilation glyph had caught up to her, and Nora found herself unable to move, and the energy she had stored up with her semblance had nowhere to go. Nora was heaving in exertion, and despite doing her best to hide it, Weiss knew that she was in a lot of pain. After all, the Time Dilation glyph had pushed her body to the absolute limits, and with the Lightning Dust boosting her muscles, Nora undoubtedly pushed her body _even further_.

As Weiss and Ren rushed over to Nora’s side, Ren cradling Nora’s body and using his Aura to absorb the damage from the electricity on Nora’s body and Weiss grasping Nora’s hands with her own, Weiss wondered where she had gone wrong.

\---0---

Weiss knew that she should have done _something_.

Weiss wasn’t dumb. She knew that Nora insisted on all these harebrained activities for the day to distract _her_. No doubt Ruby (or Jaune, this reeked of one of his stupid misdirection plans) was worried that Weiss would beat herself up for allowing Ruby to be hurt during their original mission that week and had tasked Nora to make sure Weiss was constantly distracted. Why else did Nora keep making them do “team-building” activities that were designed to keep Weiss from thinking about all the mistakes she had made in the past few days? Ren and Pyrrha were trying to be subtle about it, but they weren’t subtle enough! And Yang had given it away! _They were trying to stop her from worrying about Ruby!_

Too bad the little stunt with the Time Dilation glyph shocked Weiss enough to ignore all the distractions Nora was providing and reminded her of her mistakes. Nora _could have been badly hurt_! Like how Weiss allowed Ruby to get hurt! It was only by sheer luck that Ruby wasn’t badly hurt during the Search and Destroy and sheer luck that her dust-damned allergy to fish was quickly treated before it got worse! Just like how the stunt with the Time Dilation glyph was something that Weiss could have avoided if she knew better, if she was more careful or more adept at understanding her glyphs, if she had watched out for Nora more! It was a miracle that Nora got out mostly unscathed, _but it could have been worse!_ _It was all her fault!_

Well, enough of that! Weiss was _not_ some fragile waif that people needed to treat with kid gloves. She was perfectly capable of confronting her own weakness and guilt! She could admit that she messed up, and she didn’t need people walking on eggshells around her! If Ruby was planning on hiding behind Jaune for the entirety of the day to avoid confronting Weiss over her weakness, then Weiss was just going to seek her out!

The first step, of course, was to _find_ her blasted leader, and with the afternoon slowly giving way to evening, now was as good a time as any. After making sure that Nora had recovered (Nora had repeatedly promised that she was _okay_ , just tired from the overexertion, although Weiss still couldn’t look her in the eye after repeated assurances from both Ren and Nora) Weiss decided to have that blasted talk with Ruby that everyone seemed determined to put off.

Making her way back to the dorms, Weiss spotted Jaune, who was loitering in the hallways. The blonde giant was, of all things, playing with Zwei out in the open! He was crouching on the floor, petting the corgi, who was evidently pleased by the attention the dunce was giving him, if his wagging tail was any indication. It would have been an amusing sight, Weiss thought, if she weren’t extremely annoyed right now. Mustering all the anger in her tiny frame, Weiss began to march up to Jaune. Feeling feisty, Weiss fired her opening salvo: “Jaune!”

As if by reflex, Jaune stood up in attention, straightening his posture as he bolted upwards. He turned around, only to be met by the angry glare of the SDC heiress, and as Weiss took her decisive steps towards the leader of team JNPR, Jaune began taking cautious steps backwards until his back collided with the walls of the hallway. Zwei whimpered in annoyance, having lost his playmate.

Weiss walked up to Jaune, his back literally against the wall, and raised her left arm, motioning as if to slap Jaune, causing the blonde to wince, but instead, Weiss slammed her hand on the wall, barely missing Jaune’s left arm by an inch. (If Blake or Pyrrha were around, they would have recognized it as the classic _kabedon_ maneuver.)

Now that the heat of the moment, and Weiss’ annoyance, had passed, Weiss had to admit that they must have looked incredibly stupid. Weiss’ head was at chest level with Jaune’s, and she had to crane her neck upwards to even establish eye contact with Jaune, which was _not_ doing her neck any favors. The height difference also made the entire pose look awkward, from an outsider’s perspective, because Jaune could have, at any moment, powered out of Weiss’ blockade, but that was impossible considering the taller boy was currently cowering under the withering gaze of his snow angel. Zwei could only whimper at the absurdity of the scene.

“So, tell me, Jaune. How much of all this was your plan, and how much of it was Ruby’s?”

“Buh? Weiss? What are you talking about?”

Weiss was _not_ going to be tricked by Jaune’s pretenses to naivety. Not today! She withdrew her arms from the wall and instead slammed her right leg against it, leaving a small crack on the hard walls. After properly establishing her dominance, she crossed her arms over her chest and returned to staring daggers at Jaune.

“This! All of this! Making Nora our leader and all these team-building activities she keeps making us do! Was this your misguided way of watching out for me? What, do you think I’m having a breakdown over what happened to Ruby or something?”

“Weiss! Wait! Please stop glaring at me!” Jaune frantically shouted, waving his arms in front of him in a gesture of supplication. “I swear I have _no_ idea what you’re talking about! I was just doing what Ruby asked!”

“What, so you didn't give Nora _any_ orders at all? You just let her lead us based on her gut?” Weiss asked, her tone incredulous. Surely the blonde dunce didn't leave Nora unattended!

“Uh, no? Why would I do that, Weiss?” Jaune replied, like it was the most obvious answer in the world, and something in the tone irked Weiss a lot, like she had missed something obvious, some lesson that flew over everyone's head in the past two days. Her face scrunched in annoyance before morphing into one of confusion once she realized that Jaune was completely, utterly, sincere in his statement. She lowered her legs back to the ground and took a step back, giving Jaune some space.

Noticing the confusion, Jaune squinted at Weiss before launching into a proper explanation. “Look, if Ruby wanted _me_ to lead you guys, she would have asked me. But she didn't - she asked Nora. Why ignore Ruby's wishes and tell Nora what to do? I trust her enough.”

“...not to question your faith in Nora...”

“You kind of are, though.”

“Oh, shush, you dunce! You know what I mean,” Weiss huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “You mean to say that not once did you feel the need to question Ruby's judgment? That you thought her call to ask Nora instead of you was the right call?”

“I mean, _yeah_? I may not _get_ why she wants it, but I trust Ruby's decision.”

“What, if she asked you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?”

“If Ruby thinks I can survive the fall, sure.” Jaune replied, smiling. “She's my first friend in Beacon, and despite everything, she believed in me, even if I'm... me. All I can do is respond to that faith.”

Well, wasn’t _that_ a kick in the… Weiss sighed and took deep breaths. _Don’t be mad at Jaune, don’t be mad at Jaune…_

“Fine. I apologize for… threatening you, Jaune. As you can probably tell, I’m not in the best mood.”

“Aw, it’s okay, Weiss.” Jaune laughed, rubbing the back of his head,and giving off that dust-damned toothy grin of his. “Anything on your mind? You can always talk to me about it. I-if you’re fine with it, of course.” Jaune hastily added, to which Weiss rolled her eyes and smiled.

“We went over this already, you dunce,” Weiss smiled back, before punching Jaune in the arms. “No need to walk on eggshells around me.”

Honestly! With friends like these, how could Weiss remain mad? Especially when Jaune started to play with Zwei again, the scene giving Weiss all kinds of strange feelings!

\---0---

Weiss’ mood was significant better by the time that she had reached the room were Ruby was staying at. Technically, it was the infirmary, not a private room, so Ruby only had a small corner to herself, but there weren’t any other people currently confined. After signing the logbook, she made her way to Ruby’s bed, and found the reaper currently nose-deep into some textbooks and notes, awkwardly scribbling away with her right hand.

Weiss sighed in relief as she sat down next to Ruby’s bed. “Well, someone’s hard at work.”

“Huh?” Ruby, confused, raised her head, and beamed when she saw that it was her partner who arrived. “Weiss! You’re here!”

“Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“I mean, you didn’t visit at all, yesterday or today. Everyone else has been dropping in and out. I thought you were tired and wanted some time to yourself.”

Okay, so maybe Weiss was dragging her feet on visiting Ruby. She knew that Blake and Yang had spent time by Ruby’s side that afternoon after Dust practice, and team JNPR had evidently been taking care of Ruby ever since she was was shifted to inactive duty – hell, wasn’t Jaune pretty much at Ruby’s side the past two days?

Speaking of Jaune, Weiss looked at all the notes at Ruby’s lap and blanched at the frankly _terrible_ handwriting at display. Weiss wasn’t sure who had the worse handwriting, the dolt or the dunce, but decided that the two belonged in a very special category in her heart – since the two of them always gave her a heart attack whenever she glanced at their notes and marveled at just how sloppy and messy they were at both writing _and_ organizing information. She wasn’t even _sure_ how Ruby was making sense of Jaune’s Grimm Studies notes (the fact that he even managed to write _something_ down for that day, despite Port being more… animated than usual boggled the mind) or his comparatively more organized History notes, which Weiss assumed was thanks to Nora, Blake and Pyrrha pitching in.

“I see Jaune has been passing you his notes the entire day. No wonder I barely saw him around.”

“Yeah, he visited me at lunch too.” Ruby gathered all the notes that Jaune had meticulously gathered for her and placed it on her bedside table in a neat pile. “When they let me out, I’ll have to figure out how to make it up to him. Maybe I’ll stop making him do all the leadership paperwork for a week.”

Weiss and Ruby grinned at that thought, although they both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Weiss looked at her leader, who looked no worse for wear, despite taking some serious damage and then accidentally ingesting food she was allergic to. Honestly, it looked like Ruby was perfectly fine, like all of Weiss’ worrying was for nothing. _Was_ it for nothing? Was Weiss stressing herself out for no good reason?

Well, now was as good as time as any to ask. At the very least, she could finally utter the words that had been troubling her the past few days.

Weiss reached out to grasp Ruby’s hands, flinching slightly at the saline drip attached to Ruby’s left hand. It must have been difficult, rewriting her notes with her right hand, with her dominant hand being indisposed, and Weiss didn’t have the heart to criticize Ruby’s handwriting anymore when it dawned on her that she must been struggling to do it all day. Instead, she focused on the coldness of Ruby’s hands, hoping to share some of her own warmth to hers. Maybe Ruby would be discharged faster if Weiss succeeded.

“So why did you do it?” Weiss ventured, tightening her clasp of Ruby's hands. She did her best to ignore the feel of the syringe of the saline drip on Ruby's left hand anymore – after all, she wanted to inject _some_ warmth into Ruby's hands. “Why pick Nora?”

“Well, duh.” Ruby replied, as if she weren’t hospitalized, rolling her eyes at Weiss the same way Weiss suspected she had done repeatedly in the past to Ruby. “Jaune can't sub for me. He can't leave JNPR leaderless, plus you two have way too many issues for you to follow his lead.” Weiss nodded at that assessment. “Yang will never listen to him, not unless Jaune stops seeing her as his older sister, and Blake's housetrained him by now, it'll never work.”

Gods, he really was whipped, wasn't he?

“Pyrrha's out as well, she'll just defer to all of you in the field since she's too nice to do anything else, Ren's the same, plus you know how he gets when he thinks he's not strong enough to protect his loved ones. You can't let someone like that be leader - we're responsible for _so many people_.”

Weiss nodded, agreeing with Ruby’s assessment of their friends. She wondered if Ruby evaluated all her friends like this constantly, which led to a whole roller coaster of questions she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask. Her evaluation of everyone clearly came after much deliberate. How often did she think of her friends’ leadership abilities? _Why_ would she be thinking about good leader candidates often?

She shook her head and looked at Ruby, who continued speaking.

“But our team needs someone like Nora. You need someone like Nora.”

Weiss nodded, reflecting on the follies of youth and the arrogance (ignorance) of the untrained. It took a while to see it, but Weiss could admit that Ruby and Nora had so much in common. And if Ozpin saw hints of leadership in Ruby, surely the same could be said of Nora? How much had Ruby learned in just a few short months to realize all this?

“Why not get a substitute and let Blake lead, then? She's officially the second in command.” Weiss asked. She suspected she knew the answer, but still had to ask, anyway. It was better to get things out in the open.

“Blake has her own issues to deal with, so she's not ready to step up yet. She will soon, though.” Ruby replied, her eyes twinkling with confidence at the thought of their Faunus teammate. “Once she works out her issues, she'll be a great leader. But not now. Besides, this isn’t what’s bothering you, right?”

Weiss knew that she sometimes, without meaning to, underestimated Ruby, assumed that just because Ruby was two years younger than her that she was somehow more… immature than the rest of them. Did she not hate it when she thought Ruby and the rest were walking on eggshells around her? What right did she have to be indignant when she felt the same towards Ruby, sometimes?

“That’s true. Nora being appointed temporary leader doesn’t really bother me. I genuinely do think she means well, and she hasn’t led us astray so far.” Besides the incident with the Time Dilation glyph, but that was more Weiss’ fault for _not being good enough_. “This isn’t about you, either, but… stuff _around_ you, if that makes sense.”

The events of the past few days, after all, was like a morbid memento mori to Weiss. From the village mourning the deaths of its beloved children, to all way they were caught unprepared for the impromptu Search and Destroy, brushing ever so close to… permanently retiring as Huntresses, to all of Ruby’s near death scares (which, now that they weren’t in the heat of battle, should have terrified Weiss, if not for Nora doing her best to stop her from obsessing over her mistakes): to be a Huntress was to walk side by side with death. It had taken a few days for Weiss to put it into words, but here it was, out in the open.

Ruby cocked her eyebrows at the statement.

“Ruby?” Weiss finally found the courage to ask the million Lien question. “How far ahead did you... plan all this?”

Instead of answering the question, Ruby let out a soft laugh, removing her left hand from under Weiss’ grasp and placed it over over Weiss’. Ruby then gave Weiss a toothy grin that seemed familiar to Weiss, as if some other dunce had flashed her the exact same smile earlier today. “You wanna know why I thought Nora would be a good leader?”

Weiss tilted her head, looking at Ruby quizzically. “Sure?”

Ruby cleared her throat, extricating her hands away from Weiss to grab a glass of water placed on her bedside table. After taking a gulp, Ruby placed her glass down again and began narrating. “Glynda… Professor Goodwitch keeps telling us how important it is to always be prepared. _There is no such thing as being too prepared_ , _Miss Rose_. What a bore, right?”

“This is serious, Ruby,” Weiss chided, smiling gently. “Professor Goodwitch is right about these things.”

“That’s true,” Ruby replied. “Well, anyway, for one leadership class, she told us to write a paper about… contingencies. What to do if one of our teammates get incapacitated. What to do if _we_ get incapacitated. That was where I got the idea for the letter I left Blake. It wasn’t a very pleasant thing to talk about, I’ll tell you.”

She continued. “I asked Professor Goodwitch about it after class, too. ‘Why are we heading into missions thinking about the possibility of failing? Shouldn’t we be focusing on winning? On making things better?’ You wanna know what Professor Goodwitch said?”

“What?”

“She smiled at me. ‘You have spirit, Miss Rose. Do try to hold onto it. Brothers know people of my generation have lost that.’ Then she told me to remind Jaune that he has those extra drills she’s making him do.”

“Talk about favoritism,” Weiss joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

“But that’s why I thought Nora would be a good fit for us,” Ruby continued. “Ren and Nora… they’ve been through a lot. They’ve… thought about the contingencies. They’ve known what it means to lose the people important to them. Nora, in particular, has been supporting Ren all this time.”

Ruby left the matter unfinished, leaving Weiss to piece together the details on her own. Yang and Ruby didn’t talk much, of course, about the matter of their parentage, but it wasn’t like they went out of their way to _hide_ the fact that they were sisters with two different last names. Weiss had heard the two allude to their mom in the _past_ tense, and the same was true for Ren and Nora, who constantly alluded to growing up in various orphanages and on their own due to having no parents to call their own. Weiss didn’t know what that felt like, to lose someone at such a young age. She was blessed, she supposed, that her family was still intact, even if bonds were… frayed, tattered, ruined irrevocably. But unlike Ruby and Yang, or Ren and Nora, she had never had to think about the contingencies. What do you do when you lose the people important to you?

Ruby paused, taking a moment to mull it over before continuing. “To answer your question, I honestly don't know how far I’ve planned ahead. But it's always been at the back of my head.”

Weiss' heart froze. “You think about… not being around to lead us? All the time?”

“Not _all_ the time, but yeah. Every now and then the thought pops up in my head. Just stray thoughts, though!” Ruby clarified, all too quickly. “Don't tell Yang - she might think I'm eager to abandon her, too.”

“This isn’t a joking matter, Ruby.”

Ruby smiled at Weiss’ reprimand. “It probably isn’t.”

After a moment’s silence, Ruby continued. “Jaune has the full support of his team in case things go wrong. Pyrrha, Ren, Nora… if Jaune ever has to grapple with all this… knowledge, if anything happens to his teammates, they’re there to pick him up. And they know what it means to think about… contingency plans, about things going wrong. But our team…”

Weiss nodded. She understood, all too well, how fragile their team was, mentally. Blake, for all the strides she had made in opening up, was still guarded, waiting for the other shoe to drop, anticipating the time that all the friendships she had built in Beacon would collapse under the weight of her past sins. Yang was, outwardly, outgoing, extroverted, and let nothing get to her, but Weiss knew how much of it was bluster – how deeply sensitive Yang was when left on her own. And Weiss? Weiss was busy feeling sorry for herself, blaming herself for every little mistake, while Ruby and the rest were doing what they could to move forward and ensure Weiss didn’t spiral into depression. Weiss was sickened at how self-centered she still was, focusing only on herself and her problems. _Gods, does Ruby worry about us all the time like this?_

“It’s not right. You shouldn’t be… this shouldn’t be things you’re worrying about. You’re fifteen, for crying out loud.” Weiss finally managed to utter, feeling her eyes water. She rubbed them vigorously with her hands, willing her eyes not to shed tears. She couldn’t afford feeling sorry for herself, not when her partner needed support.

“You’re right.” Ruby replied. “It _shouldn’t_ be like this. All I wanted was to protect people. People keep telling me that it’s naïve, that being a Huntress means accepting the reality that every little mistake we make could be our last, that there isn’t a happy ending waiting for us at the end of the road.”

To Weiss’ surprise, Ruby’s voice became firmer, more confident, instead of weakening in fear as she admitted the harsh realities of the world. “But that’s why we’re here. _To make things better_. This may not be what we initially signed up for, and the world may be a dark place right now, but I believe that we can make it better if we keep moving forward. So I can live with having to make contingency plans, and dealing with the dark thoughts every now and then, and all the cynicism around me. I’m too stubborn to be beaten by dumb thoughts like that.” Ruby grinned. “But if it makes you feel any better, I promise… I’ll be here until the end. I’m too much of a dolt to leave you behind.”

“Of course. You’re a dolt who refuses to leave my side.” Weiss smiled through the tears, recalling the words that others had been sharing with her all day, words that she wanted to share with Ruby now. “Look… we’re partners.” She held the urge to say _BFFs_ , because she honestly felt that for all the effort that Ruby put into making it a reality, she did not feel she had responded in kind. _Not yet_. “You don’t need to go at this alone. If you want to talk, if you need a confidant, I’m here.”

Ruby grinned at that statement. “Well… we do have an hour to go before visiting hours are over. How was _your_ day, Weiss? I bet Nora made things a hundred times more fun.”

With the events of the day flashing in her head, Weiss couldn’t help but stifle her laughter. Looking back, it really _was_ nothing more than nonstop silliness out of an extended comedy sketch, wasn’t it? She had to thank Nora for that. In hindsight, despite her misgivings, today was a fun day, glyph mishaps notwithstanding.

“Well, Ruby, if you must know, it all started with me grabbing the cashew milk…”

\---0---

After visiting hours were up, Weiss left Ruby, having entertained her with stories of the day (as well as helping her in organizing Jaune’s _horrendous_ notes, because Weiss would be damned if she allowed her leaders’ grades to suffer more than it already did.) The talk with her leader had done Weiss wonders, and she felt the haze that had been fogging her mind, as well as the chains around her heart, loosen. At the end of the day, all she really needed was to _talk_ , and she was kicking herself for not taking up Nora’s offer sooner. The poor girl only wanted to help, and there she was, busy miring in her own angst!

Well, not if Weiss could help it! She had promised to be there for Ruby, but Ruby wasn’t her _only_ friend. She had a family now! People who were at her side!

As she was heading her way back to the dorms, she ran into the people she was looking for. Nora was pacing back and forth in front of their dorms with a worried look in her face, while Ren was leaning against the JNPR dorm’s door, his arms crossed. The two were clearly waiting for Weiss to return.

Weiss sighed. _Now comes the hard part…_

When Nora realized that it was Weiss making her way back, her face lightened, and she _darted_ straight towards Weiss, capturing the SDC heiress in a bone-crunching hug, exclaiming:

“Weiss! Oh, I’m so glad you’re back! Look, it’s not your fault things were messy earlier, I went overboard with the Time Dilation glyph and I _promise_ there weren’t any permanent effects on my body, I even had Ren and the doctors check my body and my Aura and they said there weren’t any problems so look it isn’t your fault also I’m sorry for not realizing you were bothered about me making our team do all of those activities I didn’t realize you needed a break and Ren told me go to easy on you because not everyone can keep up with me _I am so sorry Weiss_ I’m going to make it up to you I promise…”

Weiss frantically began tapping Nora’s back, a gesture that she had quickly learned was a way to inform Nora that she was giving up and needed air to breathe. Nora immediately let go of Weiss and stood in front of her, vibrating in place, her hands behind her back, as if to simulate a little girl who was standing in attention, trying to be polite. Weiss, meanwhile, was hunched over, trying to recover the air in her lungs.

“It’s…fine… Nora…” Weiss managed to wheeze out. “I…forgive…you…”

“Really?!” Nora exclaimed, her eyes sparkling in delight. Gods, how could Weiss stay mad at that?

“Yes,” Weiss managed to reply, her breathing now becoming more uniform. “For what it’s worth… I’m sorry, too. For being extra crabby. You were just trying to help us, and I was being such a bi-”

“Say no more, Weiss.” Ren added, causing the two girls to look at him. “I suppose we can let things end here and allow bygones to be bygones.” Ren paused, meditating on the saying. “That saying makes _no_ sense to me.”

Weiss and Nora giggled at their friends’ confusion over, while Ren blushed at the way the two girls were having fun at his relative inexperience with common Valean sayings.

“Well, I suppose we must get dinner now,” Ren coughed, trying to change the flow of the conversation. “I suppose you have not eaten yet, Weiss?”

“No, I haven’t.” Weiss felt the pangs of hunger overtake her, having expended a lot of energy that afternoon. “Perhaps getting dinner is a good idea right now. Nora, we should probably fetch our teammates.”

“Wait, our?” Nora let out a squeal of shock. “You mean you still want me as your leader? Even after everything today?”

Weiss smiled at Nora, sending her a signal that everything was alright. “Why wouldn’t I want that? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

Nora, unable to contain herself, leapt into the air, repeatedly, laughing and screaming: “Weiss likes me! She really _likes_ me! I’m a good leader after all!”

Weiss and Ren laughed once more while they watched the pink blur, who was endeavoring to overcome Remnant’s gravitational pull through sheer enthusiasm. As they did, Weiss turned to Ren, and whispered, “I’ll be borrowing Nora for a few more days, Ren. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I do not,” Ren replied, smiling warmly (and wasn’t _that_ a rare sight?) “I trust you. Just make sure to keep each other safe.” Ren then turned to Nora, who had calmed down from her laughing/screaming fit and grinned in response when Ren turned to her. “Make sure to keep an eye out for Weiss. Our friend is… very sheltered. She will need to rely on your guidance for many things.”

“You got it!” Nora saluted, eliciting a laughter from all three. “I’ll make sure Weissy doesn’t get into any trouble!”

“I would hope so.” Weiss’s tone was far more relaxed than it had been in the past two days, like a heavy weight was lifted, and her burden was lightened. “It is our leader’s responsibility to bring us back home, after all.”

The laughter of the three rang out in the hallways of Beacon, which were slowly growing dim as the sun was setting, and for once, Weiss wasn’t afraid of the coming darkness, not when her life was full of light and warmth.

\---0---

A few days later, when they discovered that their Escort mission turned into another Search and Destroy halfway through, Weiss found comfort in the fact that they were _far_ more prepared. She held Nora’s hand, trembling from the extra responsibility she had suddenly had to take on as temporary leader, and squeezed hard, hoping it would be enough to give Nora strength. As Blake and Yang nodded gravely, preparing for the extra responsibility of clearing out hordes of Grimm, Weiss and Nora looked to each other, finding the strength to push past the fear of failure, of what could happen if they made a mistake.

That was what the life of a Huntress entailed, after all, and this was a routine mission, Weiss insisted.

**Author's Note:**

> If this story had a central theme, it would have to be the idea of memento mori. Huntsmen and Huntresses walk side by side with fear and death all the time. How do you deal with it, choosing to go into a profession where each mistake could be your last? Do you obsess over it? Try to ignore it? Make your peace with the idea?
> 
> As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. What did you think of the story? Did you like it? What did you think of the length (that’s what he said)? Leave a review!


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